The invention relates generally to machines and methods for wrapping aluminum foil around a stiffly flexible material, and more specifically to a machine and method for simultaneously winding aluminum foil and a stiffening material to form a core around which aluminum foil may be wrapped.
Rolls of thin aluminum foil sold for domestic and commercial use are manufactured by winding aluminum foil web on preformed cylindrical cardboard cores. Roll winding machine rotate the cardboard cores to pull aluminum foil web from a larger supply until a desired quantity of foil is wound around the cardboard core. The cardboard cores are expensive to make, expensive to transport from the core manufacturer to the foil winding site and expensive to store at the foil winding site prior to winding of foil rolls.
It would be advantageous to provide a foil roll having a wound stiffener core that replaces known wound foil rolls having pre-formed cylindrical cardboard stiffener cores overcoming the above disadvantages. Further advantages would be realized by a machine and method enabling a web material for a stiffening core to be coextensively introduced with a leading end of the foil web and simultaneously formed into a spiral wound core around which a desired quantity of foil web can subsequently be wound. Still further advantages would be realized in a machine and method capable of simultaneously winding a sheet of stiffener material and a leading portion of a foil web without damage or deformation of the leading portion of the foil web.